Cape Cod canal freezer building to be demolished

Thursday

Feb 28, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 28, 2008 at 2:06 PM

Time is running out on the former freezer building that sits alongside the Cape Cod Canal. Bourne contractor Brian Bergen and his crew will begin demolishing the dilapidated building this week and take 92 years of history along with it. What was once the busiest place in Sandwich has become a safety hazard and an eyesore.

Paul Babin

Time is running out on the former freezer building that sits alongside the Cape Cod Canal. Bourne contractor Brian Bergen and his crew will begin demolishing the dilapidated building this week and take 92 years of history along with it. What was once the busiest place in Sandwich has become a safety hazard and an eyesore.

According to R.A. Lovell’s “Sandwich, A Cape Cod Town,” the building was constructed in 1916 by the Canal Fish and Freezing Company, a short-lived enterprise that closed its doors in 1921. Business at the plant only started booming in the late 1930s when the building was purchased by United Cape Cod Cranberries, which used it to store fish. The company also owned the Barnstable freezer which it used to store cranberries.

Lifelong Sandwich resident Eugene Morrow remembers working 12-hour days at the Sandwich plant in the mid 1940s. He was 14 years old at the time and brought home $28 dollars a week, which he says was “a big check in those days.” Morrow’s job was to transfer five to 10 pound boxes filled with whiting or hake to a conveyor, which would then take the fish up to the freezing area. Young girls were hired to hand pack the boxes with fish before Morrow or another worker would carry those boxes to the conveyor. The plant was run by United Cape Cod Cranberry’s Vice President Balfour Basset who would purchase the building in 1968. Morrow has fond memories of the freezer plant despite the long hours and the massive workload. He remembers fish fights would occasionally break out between the boys and girls on hot summer days. “We had a lot of fun there. I hate to see it go. It was a landmark,” Morrow says.

Former Sandwich police officer George Elvander remembers the freezer plant as “the place to go” for people seeking employment during the depression. The plant was one of the few places in town where work was available.

“There wasn’t much to do during the depression but at least you could pack fish,” Elvander remembers.

Basset bought the building after United Cape Cod Cranberry’s owner Marcus Urann died in the early 1960s.

Basset would also purchase the Barnstable freezer plant and establish his own company, Canal Marine Fisheries. According to Basset’s son Wayne Basset, the plant would handle around 250,000 pounds of fish daily in the 1960s. The business also faced serious competition during those years when Russian fleets began fishing Cape Cod’s waters for the same hake and whiting Canal Marine depended on. Wayne Basset, who started working for his father around this time, remembers being frustrated by the Russian presence. “The Russians were out there and they were fishing right alongside of our boats so of course our stocks were depleted,” he says.

Ironically Canal Marine would sell huge quantities of herring to the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Basset’s business depended on volume. Aside from freezing cranberries for Ocean Spray for a short stint in the early 1970’s, Basset only handled small fish, which sold for small change.

“I think the highest price fish that we handled was five cents. It wasn’t a dollar a pound. It was five cents in the raw. That’s why you handled the volume,” Wayne says.

Wayne started working at the plant as a night watchman in the 1960s. By the end of that decade he was employed as refrigeration engineer meaning that he would set up the plant for each day’s production and monitor its progress. Because the machines in the plant required constant upkeep, Wayne says the job was very time-consuming.

“Those machines had to keep running. For 30 years it was just my father and I running the engine rooms and they had to be maintained constantly.”

Wayne took over Canal Marine in 1994, two years after his father died. Although he says he was still handling between 120,000 and 150,000 pounds of fish per day, he says he “saw the writing on the wall” that the fishing industry was declining. By the time he sold the business and the building in 2001 the company payroll was down to five employees compared to 53 in the 1960s.

“That’s how the industry went. And it’s still declining,” Wayne says.

The Sandwich freezer plant is the last standing relic of a once thriving industry on Cape Cod. According to an article written by town historian John Cullity, there were 14 freezers on the Cape in the 1920s including two in Sandwich. The Barnstable freezer was demolished in 2002.

Basset says he has a lot of memories associated with the plant but says he won’t be sad to see it torn down.

“I spent a lot of time there but I’m not going to shed a tear when it comes down. I enjoyed the fish business but I could see the end was coming. [The Sandwich freezer] is not a building that would fit in with the fishing industry today.”

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